As you probably already heard/read, Record Store Day Saturday was off the hook everywhere across the US including at the three Amoeba Music stores. At the Berkeley, San Francisco, and Hollywood stores it was the way a record store should be: supercharged, intense, energy from music fans celebrating music and music collecting.

Among the music fans that happily packed Amoeba for Record Store Day were a lot of DJs and a lot hip-hop music collectors who were digging for such Record Store Day 2012 exclusive releases as the 3 sided, 10" Rhymesayers picture disc, or the James Brown live at the Apollo 7" single, the Childish Gambino red vinyl 12" single, or "Bizzare Ride II The Pharcyde: Singles Collection 7" box set, and a Shabazz Palaces live at KEXP 12." According to hip-hop section specialists Rob and Trey at Amoeba San Francisco the hottest item was the Pharcyde seven inch box set. "We had ten and they went right away," reported Audra from the Haight Street Amoeba. E-Lit who was kept mad busy all day Saturday at the Berkeley Amoeba store reported that, "Record Store Day was busy as all hell once again this year! Lines around the block, customers clamoring for the exclusives, and lots of happy faces. 30 minutes in and the Pharcyde "Bizarre Ride II" 7" boxes were sold out (we actually have a few more coming in, shhh...). The Rhymesayers Atmosphere/Uncluded picture disc was the next to fly out of stock, followed by Danny Brown's XXX LP with Record Store Day exclusive 7," Death Grips' "The Money Store" LP and Childish Gambino's 12." Lots of awesome buddies of mine stopped by to shop around as well. It was an awesome day!" For full in-depth Record Store Day reports at Amoeba, including lots of photos and videos of all the craziness and fun for what was the biggest and best Record Store Day to date, check the series of Record Store Day 2012 Amoeblogs here.

Thanks to Ray Ricky Rivera at the Hollywood Amoeba store, where it was also hectic all day Saturday, for this latest Amoeba Hip-Hop Top Five chart. The new SoCal Amoeba store chart is in keeping with the two Bay Area Amoeba stores in terms of what hip-hop fans are looking for most in recent weeks including De La Soul's Plug 1 & Plug 2 present First Serveon Duck Down, Kid Cudi's new rock flavored project WZRDwzrd, hometown hip-hop crew Odd Future'sThe Odd Future Tape Vol. 2, prolific Bay rap slanger E-40's latest 3-CD set Block Brochure: Welcome to the Soil 1, 2 & 3, and the new DJ Premier & Bumpy Knuckles' Kolexxxion. Other new releases in Amoeba include the brand new The Odditorium EP (a limited pressing collectors picture disc) on Decon from Gangrene (the power duo of The Alchemist and Oh No) who follow their recent excellent full length Vodka & Ayahuasca with this new four track EP that, as the folks at Brooklyn's Decon say finds Oh No "lyrically blessing the masses over gritty, psychedelic rock-tinged beats."

Trailer for Ice T's "Something From Nothing: The Art of Rap" (2012)

Above is the first trailer, released in past week, for what looks like a pretty good documentary on the history of hip-hop that will be released this summer. Titled Something From Nothing: The Art of Rap, it is feature length performance documentary film about hip-hop that is directed and hosted by Ice T. Talking heads in the urban musical history piece include Common, Eminem, Dr Dre, Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube, Bun B, B-Real, and Kanye West.

DJ Cash Money Interview by DMC Magazine (2012)

Since legendary Philly DJ Cash Money recently reformed his old duo partnership with emcee Marvelous and since the highly influential turntablist master has never quit his artform it is only fitting that the DMC organization would catch up with him recently to do the above interview that nicely does a career overview of the artist as well as the a nice overview of the history of the hip-hop DJ - and all from a DMC battle perspective.

Speaking of the history of the hip-hop DJ the other night (April 17th) in New York City at the Oxford University Press headquarters on Madison Ave. author Mark Katz had a pre publication party for his excellent book Groove Music: The Art and Culture of the Hip-Hop DJ which will be published in a couple of weeks. I was fortunate to attend the party and take accompanying photo and here on the Amoeblog, and I will feature an interview with Mark Katz about his exhaustive book in the coming weeks.

Over the past week day artist and producer David Banner released the video for the third single from his forthcoming album Sex, Drugs, & Video Games. The latest single and video (above) is “Californication” and features guest shots from Snoop Dogg, Game, Nipsey Hu$$le, Ras Kass & Kree. Meanwhile the album, slated for a May 22nd release (more info here @ DavidBanner.Com) will feature Chris Brown, Lil’ Wayne, Big K.R.I.T., A$AP Rocky, 2 Chainz, Bun B., Maino and others.